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Board of Advisors

NCLA’s Board of Advisors consists of legal, policy, academic and media luminaries from a broad spectrum of professional backgrounds. This 30-member bipartisan committee of retired federal judges, former public officials, attorneys, law professors, and communicators shares a deep commitment to advancing civil liberties for all people.

The Board of Advisors enhances the mission of NCLA by providing ongoing advice and counsel both collectively and individually to our staff and leadership regarding how best to protect constitutional freedoms from the Administrative State’s depredations.

Hon. Janice Rogers Brown
Chairman of the Board

Retired judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
and former Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court

Hon. Janice Rogers Brown
Retired judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
and former Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court

Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (retired)

Judge Brown was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in June 2005. She earned her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law and received a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Brown served as a deputy in the Office of Legislative Counsel for the State of California, as a deputy attorney general in the California Attorney General’s Office, and as Deputy Secretary and General Counsel for California’s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. After a short stint in private practice as a senior associate at the Sacramento law firm of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, Judge Brown returned to government service in 1991 as the Legal Affairs Secretary to California Governor Pete Wilson. From 1994 to 1996, she served as an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, and from 1996 to 2005, as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court.

Brown retired from the D.C. Circuit in 2017.

Randy Barnett

Professor of Law
Georgetown Law School

Randy Barnett
Professor of Law

Randy E. Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and is the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. Professor Barnett is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize. Professor Barnett’s publications includes twelve books, more than one hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius.
Peter Berkowitz

Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University

Peter Berkowitz
Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 2019-2021, he served as the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, executive secretary of the department's Commission on Unalienable Rights, and senior adviser to the Secretary of State. He is a 2017 winner of the Bradley Prize. At Hoover, Mr. Berkowitz is a member of the Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group. In addition, he serves as dean of studies for the Public Interest Fellowship, and teaches for the Tikvah Fund in the United States and in Israel.
Jennifer Braceras

Former Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Jennifer Braceras
Former Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Jennifer C. Braceras is the director of Independent Women’s Law Center. A former member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Ms. Braceras is an expert on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and has taught courses on civil rights and constitutional law at both Boston College Law School and Suffolk University Law School. Ms. Braceras is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review. After law school, she clerked for two federal judges and practiced labor and employment law with the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. A long time political columnist and editor, Ms. Braceras’s writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Hill, and National Review Online.
Hon. Susan G. Braden

Retired judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims

Hon. Susan G. Braden
Retired judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims

Judge Susan G. Braden was appointed in 2003, by President George W. Bush, to the United States Court of Federal Claims which has exclusive jurisdiction over cases against the federal government arising from: breach of contract/false claims; bid protest; patent and copyright infringement; land, water, and certain environmental disputes. On March 13, 2017, she was designated as Chief Judge. Since her retirement from the federal bench, Judge Braden recently was designated as one of ten U.S. Arbitrators to resolve disputes arising under the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement) Treaty and has joined the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University as an Adjunct Professor in the Center For Intellectual Property Protection.
Mike Carvin

Retired Partner
Jones Day

Mike Carvin
Retired Partner

In his 35 years at the Justice Department and in private practice, Mike Carvin is one of the leading appellate and trial lawyers challenging state and federal regulations on constitutional and statutory grounds, with 10 Supreme Court arguments and numerous high-profile victories. In addition to his numerous cases in the United States Supreme Court, he has argued in virtually every federal appeals court. His major cases include the recent constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the decisions invalidating Sarbanes-Oxley’s accounting board, preventing the Justice Department from obtaining monetary relief against the tobacco industry under RICO, overturning the federal government’s plan to statistically adjust the census, limiting the Justice Department’s ability to create “majority-minority” districts, and upholding Proposition 209’s ban on racial preferences in California.

Chuck Cooper

Partner
Cooper & Kirk

Chuck Cooper
Partner

Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and the chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. With over 40 years of legal experience in government service and private practice, he has argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court and scores of appeals before each of the 13 federal courts of appeals and several state supreme courts. He has been lead trial counsel in numerous complex, weeks-long trials in federal courts throughout the country. Mr. Cooper has represented a wide range of public and private clients in highly complex constitutional, civil rights, antitrust, healthcare, banking, intellectual property, elections, campaign finance, administrative, commercial, and government contract cases. He has led trial teams in cases that have won judgments and settlements valued in the billions of dollars and that have established ground-breaking constitutional precedents.
Robin Conrad

Law Office of Robin S. Conrad

Robin Conrad
Law Office of Robin S. Conrad

Robin Conrad, Law Office of Robin S. Conrad
Don Elliott

Senior Of Counsel at Covington and Visiting Professor
Yale Law School

Don Elliott
Senior Of Counsel at Covington and Visiting Professor

E. Donald Elliott has been a professor at Yale Law School since 1981, and now teaches part time as Distinguished Adjunct Faculty at the Antonin Scalia Law School. Professor Elliott has advised six presidential campaigns and teaches and writes in fields as diverse as administrative and constitutional law, civil procedure and energy and environment. He is the author or co-author of over 70 articles and seven books and writes regularly on popular legal topics for The American Spectator. Professor Elliott also has practical experience as the head of the environmental and product stewardship practice groups at four large international law firms, including Covington & Burling LLP. He was appointed by President George Herbert Walker Bush, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, to serve as assistant administrator and general counsel of the EPA, 1989-1991. He was a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell, and D.C. Circuit Chief Judge David L. Bazelon.
Dan Gallagher

Former Commissioner
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission

Dan Gallagher
Former Commissioner

Daniel Gallagher advises corporate boards and management on the full range of legal and strategic issues they face, and counsels financial services and accounting firms in investigations, regulatory proceedings and policy matters. Mr. Gallagher brings to his practice an unparalleled breadth of experience from having served not only in senior positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission but also as the chief legal officer of a global, S&P 500 corporation and general counsel of a broker-dealer. Mr. Gallagher previously served as the chief legal officer at Mylan N.V., a leading global pharmaceutical company; as the president of a financial services consulting firm; and as an SEC Commissioner. As an SEC Commissioner, Mr. Gallagher championed corporate governance reform, advocated for a comprehensive holistic review of equity market structural issues, and encouraged greatly improving the commission’s fixed income market expertise.
Adam Gustafson

Senior Counsel
Boeing

Adam Gustafson
Senior Counsel

Adam Gustafson is a Senior Counsel for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at Boeing. Prior to joining Boeing, he served as Deputy General Counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to that, Mr. Gustafson was a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, where he represented States, federal judges, environmental groups, biofuel producers, agricultural interests, and public policy organizations, on such issues as the constitutional separation of powers, the First Amendment, automotive regulations, environmental computer models, healthcare regulation, and judicial deference to federal agencies.
Greg Jacob

Partner
O’Melveny & Myers

Greg Jacob
Partner

Gregory Jacob is a partner in O’Melveny’s Washington, D.C. office. Greg Jacob represents financial services companies including banks, investment managers, health care payors, and insurers, as well as other employers, in class action and other litigation concerning ERISA and other labor and employment matters. A former Solicitor of Labor, Greg has extensive knowledge on a wide variety of labor and employment issues including ERISA, FLSA, OFCCP, and whistleblower law. He regularly litigates in federal courts throughout the country, defends clients against Department of Labor investigations, and provides counseling to plans and plan sponsors. Mr. Jacob serve as Counsel to Vice President Pence and Deputy Assistant to the President. He advised the White House Coronavirus Task Force concerning the Defense Production Act and other legal issues related to bolstering the domestic supply chain, and following the 2020 election, directly advised the Vice President on the scope of his constitutionally prescribed duty to preside over the counting of Electoral College votes. Previously Mr. Jacob served in several high-profile positions of increasing responsibility in the administration of President George W. Bush, including at the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Labor.
Erika Jones

Partner
Mayer Brown

Erika Jones
Partner

Erika Jones is a respected advisor and litigator whose practice is particularly focused on regulatory matters involving motor vehicle safety and consumer product safety, and related litigation. Erika joined Mayer Brown in 1989. Previously, she worked with the federal government in various high-level capacities. Before joining Mayer Brown, she was the NHTSA Chief Counsel between 1985 and 1989. From 1981 to 1985, she was Special Counsel to the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, US Department of Transportation. Erika was also an attorney and Regulatory Policy Analyst for the Office of Management and Budget (1980–1981) and a staff member for the Federal Communications Commission (1976–1980).
Joshua Kleinfeld

Professor
Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law

Joshua Kleinfeld
Professor

Joshua Kleinfeld teaches and writes about political, legal, and moral philosophy, criminal law, and criminal procedure. He also practices law in Northwestern's Juvenile Criminal Defense Clinic. He is a full professor with tenure at the Northwestern Pritzker School of the Law and (by courtesy) in Northwestern’s philosophy department. In 2017-18, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Stanford Law Schools. He is the recipient of the Bator Award, given annually to one American law professor under the age of 40 who has demonstrated "excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.
Gary Lawson

Professor
Boston University School of Law

Gary Lawson
Professor

Gary Lawson is the Philip S. Beck Professor at Boston University School of Law. He has authored or co-authored five books on constitutional history, constitutional theory, and jurisprudence; nine editions of an Administrative Law casebook; a Constitutional Law casebook; and more than one hundred scholarly articles. He is a founding member, and serves on the Board of Directors, of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and is an Associate Editor for the Heritage Guide to The Constitution. Professor Lawson twice clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, first at the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and then at the United States Supreme Court. In between clerkships, he was an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel.
Julia Mahoney

Professor
The University of Virginia School of Law

Julia Mahoney
Professor

Julia D. Mahoney is the John S. Battle Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Mahoney teaches courses in property, government finance, constitutional law and nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Yale Law School, she joined the University of Virginia faculty as an associate professor in 1999. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School, and before entering the legal academy, practiced law at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Her scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials.
Jonathan Mitchell

Mitchell Law PLLC

Jonathan Mitchell
Mitchell Law PLLC

Jonathan F. Mitchell is Principal at Mitchell Law PLLC. In 2010, Mr. Mitchell was appointed Solicitor General of Texas, a position he held until January 2015. After leaving the Texas Solicitor General’s office, Mr. Mitchell served as the Searle Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law before joining the Hoover Institution as a Visiting Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Mr. Mitchell also served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School before opening his own law firm in 2018. Mr. Mitchell clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He then served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2003 through 2006. Mr. Mitchell has argued five times before the Supreme Court of the United States, and more than 20 times in the federal courts of appeals. He has also argued before Supreme Court of Texas and in numerous trial courts. Mr. Mitchell has authored the principal merits brief in eight Supreme Court cases, and has written and submitted more than 20 amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court.
Elizabeth Papez

Partner
Gibson Dunn

Elizabeth Papez
Partner

Elizabeth Papez is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and partner in Gibson, Dunn’s litigation, appellate, and regulatory groups. Most recently in 2022, Ms. Papez has been named to Benchmark’s  “Top 250 Women” list where selection is based on “individual litigators’ professional activities as well as client feedback surveys.”  Ms. Papez has particular expertise litigating high-stakes complex commercial and class actions, appeals, and parallel government enforcement matters involving securities, antitrust, and consumer deception claims primarily in the financial services,  healthcare, and technology sectors.  She has successfully led both the defense and prosecution of several high-exposure matters, and has extensive experience working with economic experts and business personnel to craft powerful legal and factual narratives that resonate with courts and regulators.
Roger Pilon

B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies
Cato Institute

Roger Pilon
B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies

Roger Pilon is a senior fellow in the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, which he founded in 1989 and directed until 2019; the inaugural holder emeritus of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, Cato’s first endowed chair, established in 1998; and the publisher emeritus of the Cato Supreme Court Review, which he founded in 2001. He served also as Cato’s vice president for legal affairs, which he was named in 1999.

Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989, the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution.

Joseph Postell

Associate Professor of Politics
Hillsdale College

Joseph Postell
Associate Professor of Politics

Joseph Postell is associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College and a visiting fellow in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He is the author of the book “Bureaucracy in America: The Administrative State’s Challenge to Constitutional Government.”
Glenn Reynolds

Professor of Law
The University of Tennessee College of Law

Glenn Reynolds
Professor of Law

Glenn Reynolds is the Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law. His special interests are law and technology and constitutional law issues and his work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review, the Southern California Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, the Journal of Space Law, and the High Technology Law Journal. Professor Reynolds has also written in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, Road & Track, Urb and the Wall Street Journal as well as other popular publications. His most recent books are The Social Media Upheaval, The Judiciary’s Class War and The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.
Brian Richman

Associate
Gibson Dunn

Brian Richman
Associate

Brian A. Richman is an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department, and is a member of the Appellate and Constitutional Law and Administrative Law and Regulatory practice groups. Mr. Richman represents clients in high-stakes appellate, administrative law, and litigation matters. Before joining the firm, Mr. Richman clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also practiced at a New York law firm, where he focused on commercial litigation and white collar defense and investigations. Mr. Richman is a former securities compliance officer at Goldman Sachs, and has handled numerous regulatory matters involving the SEC, CFTC, FERC, FINRA, and the Federal Reserve.
Richard Samp

Retired Senior Litigation Counsel
New Civil Liberties Alliance

Richard Samp
Retired Senior Litigation Counsel

Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.

David Schoenbrod

Professor of Law
The New York Law School

David Schoenbrod
Professor of Law

David Schoenbrod is a Trustee Professor of Law at New York Law School. From 1972-79, Professor Schoenbrod served as one of the leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he campaigned to reduce lead in gasoline, resurrect the then-decrepit New York City subway, and protect the environment of Puerto Rico. Previously, he was Director of Program Development at the community development project that Senator Robert Kennedy established in Bedford Stuyvesant. He has also been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
Dan Troy

Former General Counsel
GSK

Dan Troy
Former General Counsel

Dan Troy is the Chief Business Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, and General Counsel of Valo in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to joining Valo, he served as the Senior Vice President & General Counsel of GlaxoSmithKline and was member of its Corporate Executive Team. Dan joined GSK in September 2008 and was responsible for leading the company’s legal department in protecting GSK’s intellectual property; managing litigation; supporting business development transactions; and business compliance and risk management. Prior to joining GSK, he was a Partner at the Washington law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where he principally represented pharmaceutical companies and trade associations on matters related to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and government regulations. Dan was formerly Chief Counsel for the FDA, where he served as a primary liaison to the White House and the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Eugene Volokh

Professor of Law
UCLA Law School

Eugene Volokh
Professor of Law

Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Professor Volokh teaches First Amendment law and a First Amendment amicus brief clinic at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, tort law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy. Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2013), as well as over 90 law review articles. He is a member of The American Law Institute, a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, and the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog. His law review articles have been cited by opinions in eight Supreme Court cases and several hundred court opinions in total, as well as several thousand scholarly articles.
Peter Wallison

Arthur F. Burns Fellow, Financial Policy Studies
AEI

Peter Wallison
Arthur F. Burns Fellow, Financial Policy Studies

Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies and is co-director of AEI’s program on Financial Policy Studies. Prior to joining AEI, he practiced banking, corporate and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. Mr. Wallison has held a number of government positions. From June 1981 to January 1985, he was General Counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan Administration's proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and between 1972 and 1976, he served first as Special Assistant to New York's Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller as vice president of the United States.
Rebecca Wood

Partner
Sidley

Rebecca Wood
Partner

Rebecca Wood is co-leader of the firm’s Food, Drug and Medical Device practice, serves on Sidley’s Global Life Sciences Leadership Council, and leads Sidley’s Washington, D.C. Healthcare and FDA group. Ms. Wood previously served as Chief Counsel (general counsel role) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under former Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. At FDA, she worked on virtually every significant initiative addressed by the Commissioner and agency leadership. She was the principal legal advisor on major initiatives including efforts to streamline the drug and device development approval process, modernize the agency’s regulatory framework, combat addiction to opioids and nicotine, enhance the product safety and labeling of food and medical products, and address drug pricing. She also focused on First Amendment and preemption issues.